About ABC

Mission

The mission of ABC Counseling & Family Services is to provide specialized evaluation and treatment to youth that are either the victims of sexual abuse or have sexual behavior problems and to help their families heal from the trauma of sexual abuse. ABC Counseling & Family Services provides adoption services for adoptive parents and counseling for women experiencing an unplanned pregnancy.

History

ABC Counseling & Family Services, Inc. was founded in September of 1992. It is a private, not-for-profit, non-sectarian agency with its home office located in Normal, Illinois. The agency was opened to meet the need for specialized services in adoption and sexual abuse assessments and treatment.

Executive Director, Lynn Willard, came to the agency in 1992 with almost twenty years of social service experience, the last ten of which were spent in adoption and sexual abuse counseling. The Director had a dream of opening an agency that would specialize in a couple of areas of social service, and one that would be very personalized and not bureaucratic.

The Director recognized the importance of personalizing client’s needs rather than obtaining notoriety. She had experienced first hand the sorrow of adoptive couples being turned away from agencies because they were too old to adopt or because they would wait longer than couples of a particular religious affiliation. She had worked with older children placed in adoptive homes who had been sexually abused and found there were no counselors specifically trained to provide individual and group counseling.

Since ABC Counseling & Family Services opened, the agency has served over 5,700 clients and families throughout Central Illinois. Our staff has grown from one full-time and one part-time to four part-time staff and fourteen full-time staff with a steady stream of MSW and BSW interns.

ABC has also expanded and opened offices in Champaign/Urbana, Decatur, Springfield, Peoria, and Pekin, Illinois. The agency recruits student interns from Illinois State University along with other universities and trains these bachelor’s and master’s level students in skills from Adoption and Sexual Abuse Counseling to Business and Public Relations.

Future Vision

With an eye to the future, ABC Counseling & Family Services strives…

To be the premier provider of sexual abuse counseling for youth, serving in multiple locations throughout Central Illinois.

To be recognized as Central Illinois’ most inclusive and complete adoption service provider.

To serve as the first resource for those experiencing unwanted pregnancies.

To provide all services without judgment or discrimination, and

To offer services by a highly qualified, trained, and compassionate staff.